Thomas A. Janvier

“ The bunchy woman's snappy eyes was a-snapping dangerous, and she'd stuck her two hands on her fat sides with her elbows out, and Cherry said she looked like as if she'd a knife in both garters and meant to use 'em on him if he didn't come to time. He was all broke up by these doings, he said—each of them three widows having Shorty's own letter to show for herself—and how he ever in the world was going to settle matters with 'em, he said, was more'n he could see. ”

“ And he was the more dead set on putting Shorty through regular because he'd had all the funny business about hangings he could hold. He was sore all over, Cherry was—and he had a right to be—about the rig the Sage Brush Hen put on him to save Santa Fé's neck from stretching: the Hen, dressed so queer there was no knowing her, romping in just as Charley was being roped for business purposes and pretending she was Charley's wife come sudden from back East; and begging Cherry most pitiful to save her dear husband's life for the sake of keeping their precious children from being orphans ”

“ The widows all set up stiff and glared at him when he said that, it being a regular squelcher; and the rest of us all set to laughing as hard as we could laugh.
"Order in the court!" says Judge Wilson, rapping hard with his spike. And then he went on, speaking firm but quiet: "As matters stand, ladies, I think that you had better all try again. And this time, instead of responding viva voce, I suggest that you write on slips of paper the facts which my duty compels me to require you to lay before the court. ”

“ The Pullman conductor said afterward them widows was real friendly together on the run up to Pueblo. Till bed-time come, he said, the three of 'em was all bunched in one section telling each other how their Edward and their Bob and their Tecumseh—listening to 'em, he said, was downright confusing—had treated 'em. And all the time, he said, they kept coming back to how glad they was he was hung. As things turned out, that was about the one point on which all them extry widows of Shorty's was agreed. ”

“ The bunchy woman's black eyes kept getting bigger and bigger as the thin woman was a-saying all this, and the little mousy woman's eyes bulged too. They both of 'em tried to speak at once, but the bunchy woman got the lead.
"I'm Robert Nellwood's wife," said the bunchy woman, "and I live in East Saint Louis. I've got here a letter from my Bob telling just the same things this woman says are in her letter—about my being his widow, and his leaving three hunderd dollars and the claim to me, and it's being put with you to take care of till I come along. ”

“ He hadn't no clear notion about the shooting—he not being sober, as I've said, at the time—and when he come to and found he was hitched fast to the iron safe in the express office, that being the best we could do to jail him, and was told what he was up against, he thought the boys were putting a rig on him and only laughed. When he did ketch on, the thing being so rubbed in on him he had to, he kicked hard. If he really had shot Hart's nephew, he said, he didn't know nothing to speak of about it, and so oughtn't to be telegraph-poled for what was an accident that might happen to anybody. ”

“ But any tricks about money matters he's been up to, with her or anybody else, ain't—and I'll not allow 'em to pass. This is my game, and don't you forget it. I'm Bob Nellwood's lawful widow. Here's his letter telling me I have a right to his cash and his claim. And so I'll thank you, Mr. Cherry, to hand over the goods to me right away. ”

“ Both of 'em went up to Wood—keeping as wide apart as they could—and asked him where Mr. Cherry's store was; and Wood he pointed it out to 'em—it was only a dozen rods or so away from the deepo—and off they both set for it; keeping on keeping wide apart, and having their chins up sort of scornful. The Pullman conductor accounted for the way they was behaving. It seems he'd give 'em the same section—they being the only women on board—and they'd set up most of the night rowing over which of 'em would get the lower berth. ”

“ Cherry, was his desire to revenge himself on you for giving him the hanging that we all are agreed he so richly deserved. Last night, at supper at the Forest Queen, I was talking with the driver of the Santa Fé coach, Mr. Hill; and Mr. Hill told me that Edward, just before the ending, winked at him and said that he would eat an entire pig if in about two weeks you were not 'the sickest man'—Edward always spoke coarsely—on whom Mr. Hill ever had laid his eyes. The two weeks now are nearly up, and I fear, Mr. ”

“ Nada me gustaria mas!"—which was her Dago way of putting it that hanging him suited her right down to the ground. She had a lot more to tell, Juana had, that didn't put him much in what you would call a good light—and when she'd done telling it none of us fussed any to speak of over his having got jerked away. ”